Jibo Wants To Be Your Family’s First Robot

Meet Jibo, a connected personal assistant that aims to be your family's first robot.

We are dependent on our smartphones to do many things in our family life. These devices set reminders, take pictures, find recipes, and let us communicate with one another. But even though they are an integral part of our lives, they don’t feel like part of the family. Meet Jibo, a connected personal assistant that adds a much needed personality to technology, making it social. Jibo aims to be your family’s first robot, and by the looks of how well he is doing on Indiegogo, there are a lot of families that can’t wait to welcome him home.

Jibo is a WiFi-enabled robot equipped with two high-resolution cameras and a 360-degree microphone. He sits on three full-revolute axes, which let him turn his head around to face you when needed. Jibo’s cameras use face-tracking, perfect for picture-taking and for more immersive video calling. The microphone lets you talk to Jibo from anywhere in the room and have him process what you are saying with his natural language processor.

Like Siri or Google Voice, Jibo can be used to make a call, set an alarm, or get the weather. Ask Jibo for a recipe, to order take-out, or even read you a story and he will do it. The more you use Jibo, the more he gets to know you. Jibo’s algorithms start to learn about you to adapt to preferences based on your life.

On top of being completely helpful, Jibo is also super adorable. The concept video for Jibo on the Indiegogo campaign brings to life a robot that we would expect to see in a Disney movie.

The Jibo campaign has raised nearly nine times its funding goal with tons of time on the clock. Early adopters who need to have Jibo in their homes as soon as possible can grab one for $499 USD with a shipping date of December 2015. The campaign just recently unlocked a perk for those more patient that lets them pre-order Jibo for 2016 with only $199 down now, then pay the rest closer to the shipping date.

This story is provided courtesy of Designer of Things blog. Designer of Things is a two-day conference and demo hall dedicated to the exciting potential of wearable tech, 3D printing, and the Internet of Things. The event takes place September 23-24, 2014, in San Francisco, and is produced by UBM Tech, which also owns EE Times. For more information and for passes and pricing, click here.

Jibo certainly will teach market analysts many things by becoming extremely popular. But for that it needs to build up enough hype. This can only be achieved with clever marketing. Why isn?t Jibo marketed with Home Automation systems? Then people will get interested in home automation systems because they?ll be more interested in Jibo, and they?ll want to know what kind of a dimension is the home automation system because Jibo is marketed with it.

Yes, I can see this being the first home robot to seriously hit the market. One reason is that there's not much major movement. Yes, I would love to have a Jibo. This is like having a private secretary.